News that Coty has signed a deal with Balenciaga to create and develop fragrances (with the first one due to appear in stores in the spring of 2010) led me to ponder over what exactly attracts us to a perfume.

On a personal level I can honestly say that scent is one of the few instances when "designer" connotations hold no appeal to me whatsoever…possibly a throwback to all those instances during my childhood when I was trapped in elevators and other confined spaces with numerous women who’d obviously bathed in Yves St. Laurent’s Opium…it marked them as part of a tribe but gave no clue to their individual personality. And, after all, fragrance is such a personal thing…both from the point of view of the emotions it evokes in you and in those around you…and because the same scent can smell so differently on different people.

Some people are lucky enough to encounter their signature scent early in life, some flirt with a succession of scents until they find ‘the one’. My own olfactory journey led me to not one but three fragrances which span both my moods and the seasons.

From Santa Maria Novella’s Melograno aqua di colonia (pomegranate with baby powder-ish undertones shouldn’t also have a masculine feel but this scent does), to Fresh’s Cannabis Santal (Sephora sells this as a men’s fragrance and, as this is the second scent where I’m going to use the word "masculine" I can only say that my manly side must appear whenever I go near a make-up counter…however once I realized that I wasn’t a "light and flowery" scent kind of girl I’ve been much happier so I’ll continue to enjoy this heavy-but-still-wearable-in-the-summer scent), to Fresh’s Sake (the most feminine of the three but almost poisonously so…spicy, yet sweet…a perfume that initially seems to welcome you in, and then slams the door in your face) all occasions are covered by my heavenly triumvirate.